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Introduction
Consultation and collaboration are indirect services provided by school counselors which can foster the stakeholders in the educational system to render improved services for children. Multilayered school counseling approach developed for the school counselors today involves the provision of direct and indirect assistance in order to enhance the academic productivity of students. Modern school counseling framework includes multiple components, such as support of educators, guidance curriculum, and direct assistance for students and families. This strategy focuses on various services invented to support teachers, students, and parents.
Consultation is considered to be a responsive service, which school counselors implement when fostering the academic achievements of the students through the application of appropriate strategies designed to help children and their parents. System support presupposes the provision of informational assistance to the school community in order to target the needs of students. In this case, the school utilizes consultation for the purposes of accountability. In the result, consultation is considered to be an integral component of a complex counseling framework designed for educational field.
Collaboration is another service crucial for the school system, as it helps to build a connection between the educational establishment, students, their families, and the entire community. While schools foster the development of individual and concentrate attention on the students’ achievements, ambitions, and talents, it is essential for the educators to connect with the families and create a stable link between them and the community. Counselors are responsible for the maintenance of these relationships by serving as the mediators between the educational establishment and the community. A comprehensive counseling framework within the educational system has to focus on both functions consultation and collaboration in order to sustain students’ success and comply with the needs of the community.
Discussion
For instance, one of the qualitative studies analyzing the proficiency of the modern school counseling practices revealed that the delivery of ASCA National Model comprehensive school counseling approach trigger measurable benefits among students (Lapan, 2012). Moreover, this program proved to be effective for improving the academic achievements of youth living in poverty, where the greatest barriers to procuring all students with the benefits of the program are “the huge implementation gaps in school counseling programs across schools and the very high student-to-school-counselor ratios that impede more personalized counseling relationships for every student” (Lapan, 2012, p. 87). The main problem identified by this inquiry was the correlation between the abilities of one counselor and the huge number of students in school. Consequently, the counselors are not able to target all issues if there are an overwhelming number of children in an educational establishment.
In the modern schools, counselors have multiple responsibilities and new challenges that usually concern the alterations occurring in the modern world, including the frequent development of technologies, globalization, and prevalence of multiculturalism. Today, counselors have to target such problems as bullying, multicultural tension, frictions between the educational establishment and parents, as well as growing academic requirements to the students (Amatea & Clark, 2005). In this case, the counselors have to be aware of the strategies that may improve this issue as well as the ability to implement them correctly. It is essential to have in mind that the academic achievements and behavioral patterns of the students have to correspond with the modern standards existing in the society.
The main reason for this is the ability of students to be competitive on the job market as well as being able to function in the society. There are required norms and standards determining the set of skills and abilities of each citizen of the country. However, as the practice shows, there are certain barriers to achieving these goals. The level of education, as well as the funding in private and public schools, are different. As the system of education over the last several years has been experiencing marketization, the public schools suffer the lack of financing making the students less advantaged comparing with their counterparts attending private educational establishments.
Therefore, the main goal of the modern counselors is to create a bridge between the resources of the school and the abilities of the students, where the families and the educators will have to be involved at every level. For instance, it was revealed that communicational social skills are essential in the modern business environment and in the society in general. Consequently, lack of such skills decreases the ability of individual to interact with the peers and colleagues. According to one of the studies, “perceived popular adolescents have a unique profile of traits, whereas socio metrically popular adolescents are primarily prosocial” (Bruyn & Cillessen, 2008, p. 443). Counselors play one of the most important roles in the development of social and communicational skills among students and improve them when children encounter with the problem. Inability to address this issue may make the counseling and guidance less effective.
Some researchers emphasize that communicational skills affect students’ mental stability (Bruyn & Cillessen, 2008). Moreover, some studies point to the significance of ‘popularity’ among the teenagers connecting it to the depressions and substance abuse as the result of failing within the group. For instance, it was revealed that “academic performance, popularity, and depression are strong predictors of adolescent substance use” (Diego, 2003, p. 39). Consultations and collaboration between the counselors, students, and their families are crucial if the school pays attention to the wellbeing of their students. Therefore, it is possible to admit that the use of multifaceted strategies, like group therapy or direct conversations with the family members has to be the main strategy used by the counselors.
Individual approach to students is one of the most popular and effective approaches in the counseling practice. At the same time, it is one of the most time-consuming, as due to the high prevalence of students and availability of only one counselor will not allow the specialist to work with all children. Due to this fact, the modern experts and officials emphasize the decreased quality of counseling in the modern schools. An individual approach is effective only when there is an urgent need to implement this strategy. Other cases will have to involve group sessions and the ability of a counselor to target several stakeholders at once. For example, in a case when the student involves in constant conflicts with the others, a counselor will have to involve this particular student, his/her parents, school management, and the victims in order to address the issue. At the same time, such situations are usually considered to be particularly problematic and challenging for all parties involved.
One of the central challenges for the counselors is the need to address the problems of disruptive behavior of students. Studies on this issue revealed that one of the main causes of disruptive behavior in schools is the low economic status of households (Saunders, 2006). For instance, it was claimed that “access to technology such as a computer and the Internet were seen as important for a decent education, especially for young people in the schooling system and new migrants/refugees – many of whom had limited experience using computers” (Saunders et al., 2006, p. 13). Improper targeting of this problem by the counselors leads to the intensification of the disruptive behavior. While educators are the primary stakeholders responsible for the behavior management in class, counselors address the issue of continuous manifestations of such behavioral patterns among students. In this case, the counselors may collaborate with the teacher and the principal and serve as a mediator between the family and the school if it is needed. At the same time, it was indicated that the roles of school counselor have changed over time.
Several studies revealed that new models of school counseling were elaborated for strengthening and clarifying modern professional identity in this profession, as numerous responsibilities of school counselors have been reconsidered and debated (Astramovich et al., 2013). In the past several years, the government presented two initiatives to target the profession of school counseling, namely the Transforming School Counseling Initiative (TSCI) and ASCA's (2012) National Model (CACREP, 1992; ASCA, 2012). Comparing to other similar models, both the ASCA and TSCI focused solely on the academic support of students as well as the advocacy responsibilities of counselors but limited the ability of these professionals to provide actual counseling services to children (Astramovich et al., 2010). For instance, the ASCA (2012) emphasized that individual approach in counseling that includes therapeutic sessions is not the duty of a school counselor, but a responsibility of a professional psychologist. It is considered that school counselors are not capable of providing the students with the qualified psychological help and moral assistance. Consequently, it has been assumed that the functions of these professionals fostered by the novice approaches have become misleading and contributed to a weakening of professional identity of the counselors. At the same time, a debate regarding the ability of a school counselor to provide psychological assistance has been going on for a long time.
At the same time, school counselors were supposed to accomplish myriad duties, including the behavioral management, dealing with academic achievements, managing the communication among the educators, approving and correcting the curriculum, working with the families, and helping the principals to collaborate with the teachers. However, the research in school counseling initiated a lot of attempts to clarify these duties. Several studies concentrated attention on administrative duties of counselors. For example, Amatea & Clark (2005) revealed that school principals preferred the counselors to focus on consultations, leadership, and implementing group and individual guidance sessions. Another study conducted by Zalaquett & Chatters (2012) claimed counselors have to concentrate their attention on maintaining counseling services to students and general coordination with the school management. However, the survey conducted by the school counselors determined that counselors spent the majority of their time by doing non-counseling duties, like scheduling, organizing, communicating with the staff (Nelson, Robles-Pina, & Nichter, 2008). This conclusion leads to an assumption that it is preferred that the school counselors accomplish administrative roles than providing actual counseling.
One more research dedicated to the role of school counselor recognized that they spend only one-third of their time for providing actual counseling services, while the other functions included guidance, individual planning, and managerial activities (Walsh, Barrett, & DePaul, 2007). Overall, it is believed that the counseling of students regarding their behavioral and mental issues has to be accomplished by a school psychologist, while the academic and career development orientation has to be the responsibility of a school counselor. However, not all of schools hold both specialists, as the majority of public educational establishments employ counselors only. In general, the research indicates that despite several attempts to advance the responsibilities of school counselors, many of them still continue to encounter with the ambiguity in their profession.
The ambiguity existing in the profession of school counselors may be the cause of role diffusion overwhelming this field, which roots in the inability of academics and officials to define a specific set of roles of a school counselor. Here, role diffusion is a phenomenon of being appointed to responsibilities that professionals from other fields are maintaining. For instance, role diffusion is created when a counselor is demanded to accomplish administrative roles, such as organizing the group of educators for training, which is the role of a vice principle; or managing the behavior of students, which is a teachers’ responsibility. While a school counselor is capable of accomplishing these tasks, these are not their direct responsibilities and such situations create role diffusion leading to certain ambiguity. Moreover, role diffusion is unintentionally consolidated by different counseling models, including the most recent ones. At the same time, it is important to note that these specialists have unique counseling roles in educational settings that usually are taken for granted. The central areas of attention of all school counselors are consultation and collaboration, where they function as mediators and supporters.
At this point, it is crucial to examine the role of school counselor as the developer of students’ academic success. School counselors play a vital role in helping in the effective development of students that also improves the teachers’ capability to educate them. While psychological counseling is a debatable topic, support in the academic success of students is an integral role of a counselor. In fact, it has been emphasized that modern school counselors occupy a powerful and crucial position that complements the academic rigor of students as well as their career development (Reiner & Hernandez, 2012). School counselors may help the students to choose their future profession, shift the focus on the necessary disciplines, select a higher educational establishment, and target the academic challenges. In the past, it was considered that teachers are responsible for these functions, which overwhelmed their routine and a daily job.
In the result of a reform that created a position of a counselor, the role of these professionals was shaped by the societal needs and academic requirements on the job market. At the same time, it has been claimed that if school counselors want to remain important, they have to be involved in actual counseling portion of their work and the improvement of the psychological and mental health of students (Mainzer, 2010). It contradicts the other studies that point to the different direction arguing that the school counselors do not have a qualification to perform such activities. Nevertheless, some researchers insist that school counselors have the capability to provide mental health services to students at least at the initial phase. This approach criticizes the ASCA strategy that continues to make school counselors as the consultants on career development and academic achievement rather than helping them to overcome serious psychological problems. At the same time, if the modern approach to school counseling eliminates the responsibility of counselors to support students in mentally challenging situations, children will not have the ability to receive immediate psychological help when they need to.
Conclusion
There is still a lot of ambiguity in the responsibilities of a school counselor. It is not clear if they have to be responsible for the psychological help, administrative roles, or being responsible for mediating the conflicts. As the researchers divided into two groups, it is quite challenging to determine which one of the approaches is correct. As the school management has a vague perspective on a role of a counselor, they continue to accomplish myriad duties, depending on the requests of the principals. It makes the job of the counselors more complicated and the inability to make a strict determination of their direct duties create an atmosphere of ambiguity when they cannot escape additional duties. At the same time, the ability of counselors to support students in their academic performance and psychological needs is a huge advantage for the schools where the educators can do their job more effectively, principals can focus on their managerial responsibilities, and students would be able to feel supported.
It is possible to make a job of school counselors more effective by defining their responsibilities, creating a more productive atmosphere for all stakeholders, and taking into account the interests of all parties, including students, their parents, educators, counselors, and the management of the school. It is quite difficult to identify the most efficient way of making school counseling work for all educational establishments. At the same time, it is possible to create an individualized approach to a specific school, where particular framework will be more valid. While this strategy may be more cost- and time-consuming, the responsibilities of a particular school counselor will be determined more effectively comparing to the approach proposed by the novice frameworks that do not consider all aspects of this profession.
References
Amatea, E. S., & Clark, M. (2005). Changing schools, changing counselors: A qualitative study of school administrators' conceptions of the school counselor role. Professional School Counseling, 9, 16-27.
ASCA (2012). ASCA National Model. Retrieved from https://www.schoolcounselor.org/school-counselors-members/asca-national-model
Astramovich, R. L., Hoskins, W. J., & Bartlett, K. A. (2010). Rethinking the organization and delivery of counseling in schools. Counseling Outfitters. Retrieved from http://counselingoutfitters.com/vistas/vistasl0/Article_78.pdf
Astramovich, R. L., Hoskins, W. J., Gutierrez, A. P., & Bartlett, K. A. (2013). Identifying Role Diffusion in School Counseling. The Professional Counselor, 3(3), 175.
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Diego, M. A. (2003). Academic Performance, Popularity, and Depression Predict Adolescent Substance Use. Adolescence, 38(149), 35-48.
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Mainzer, E. (2010). What is a school counselor? NYSSCA Journal, 7 (1), 47-49.
Nelson, J. A., Robles-Pina, R., & Nichter, M. (2008). An analysis of Texas high school counselors' roles: Actual and preferred counseling practices. Journal of Professional Counseling: Practice, Theory, & Research, 36, 30-46.
Reiner, S. M., & Hernandez, T. J. (2012). Are We Going in the Right Direction? Concerns about School Counseling. Michigan Journal of Counseling, 39(2), 28-39.
Saunders, P. (2006). Experiencing Poverty: The Voices of Low-Income Australians. Towards New Indicators of Disadvantage Project. Stage I: Focus Group Outcomes. Australian Council of Social Service, 1-41.
Walsh, M. E., Barrett, J. G., & DePaul, J. (2007). Day-to-day activities of school counselors: Alignment with new directions in the field and the ASCA National Model. Professional School Counseling, 10, 370-378.
Zalaquett, C. P., & Chatters, S. J. (2012). Middle school principals' perceptions of middle school counselors' roles and functions. American Secondary Education, 40, 89-103.
